Pumpkin Old-Fashioned Doughnuts with Glaze

These donut shop style, glazed old-fashioned doughnuts made with sour cream, pumpkin puree AND spice. The perfect accompaniment to hot coffee on a chilly fall morning!

It’s a much needed midweek donut run.

How is the week going for you so far? Mines been chewing me up and spitting me out. ????

We’ve been having some major technical difficulties with our hosting provider and have been working to get them fixed. But yesterday, the site went completely down! And it was at the worst time possible — dinner time. I had so many of you contacting me to let me know about the issue (thank you!), and a few of you who were panicked because dinner needed to be out and the recipe wasn’t pulling up! Let me say, I am so sorry! I was able to get recipes to those of you that messaged me on Facebook, but I would also like to apologize to anyone that was trying to access the blog and just couldn’t get on. Please know, that we did do some patch work and are trying to get to the root of the problem. That’s my week for you so far!

Luckily after the whole fiasco with the hosting, I had a mini stockpile of these old-fashioned sour cream doughnuts to coax me back into everyday life.

These doughnuts are like the old-fashioned cake doughnuts that you get from your favorite bakery or donut shop. They are cracked on the outside, glazed, and crunchy. I love when the glaze gets into all the little nooks, soaks up, and gets crunchy. I added in a whole ½ cup of pumpkin puree and huge tablespoon of pumpkin spice to make these sour cream doughnuts extra special for fall. Because EVERYTHING tastes better with a little pumpkin spice, right? Okay. Maybe not everything.

These old-fashioned doughnuts aren’t ‘yeasty’ and pillowy as a traditional yeast donut. They are more like a cake, soft and slightly more firm. But still, the taste of sour cream in a donut, is super fantastic. Growing up it was nothing but a yeast donut for me, and now, I love the cake doughnut equally as much. Maybe a little more sometimes.

Old-fashioned sour cream doughnuts are made the way you would make a cake. By mixing the dry ingredients together in a bowl – cake flour, baking powder, salt, pumpkin spice, and a teeny tiny hint of nutmeg. It’s important to weight out the cake flour to get more accurate results and better donuts. Worth it.

Combine wet ingredients in another bowl. So in a stand mixer, I combined the butter and sugar together, added in the egg yolks, and then the pumpkin puree. Just like you would do to a cake with sour cream as an ingredient, we add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients alternating with sour cream. It really is a cake that’s been turned into a donut and glazed.

After you’ve combined everything, let it sit in the bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and pop it in the refrigerator for an hour. This is the hardest part, all this waiting. ????

Then all that’s left is rolling out the dough into ½ inch thickness and using a doughnut cutter to cut out the donuts. I save the inside circles and turned them into cake munchkins. I’m not letting any of these old-fashioned doughnuts go to waste.

Once you’ve rolled, all that’s left to do is fry them. Make sure to do it in small batches. Overcrowding the pan will cause the oil temperature to decrease and you’ll end up with oily donuts. You want to keep the oil at a set 325ºF. Let them hang out on a paper towel to soak up excess oil.

If you aren’t a glazed donut kind of person, jump right in and grab these warm, slightly sweet, pumpkin cake doughnuts.

And then, THE GLAZE! It’s a simple combination of powdered sugar, corn syrup, vanilla and hot water. I completely dunk the doughnuts into the glaze and then let it set on a baking sheet lined with a wire rack. This allows each donut to have the perfect amount of glaze without it being overly sweet.

There are a few things that I used to make these donuts that I recommend as they’ll make the donut making process smoother:

a good kitchen scale – this will help you get the exact amount of cake flour that you need. It’s very important to get the correct amount of flour so the doughnuts are dry. I’ve linked to the exact one that I use.

deep frying/candy thermometer – It’s important to use a thermometer to monitor the temperature of your oil! Too hot or too cool will cause the doughnuts to cook to fast or soak up excess oil.

donut cutter – These come in all different sizes, I used a 2 ½ inch cutter (which is the one i’ve linked to) and yielded about 24 doughnuts. If you use a 3 ½ inch or larger, you will have fewer but larger donuts that will require additional time to fry, than the time that’s stated.

cast iron skillet – a heavy bottom pan, cast iron skillet, or dutch oven will help retain the heat better during frying, this will also allow even browning on the donuts.

It’s been a super long post, but I hope you enjoy these yummy old-fashioned doughnuts that have been spruced up for fall with lots of pumpkin flavor! 🙂

Pumpkin Old-Fashioned Doughnuts with Glaze

Author: Little Spice Jar

Prep time: 1 hour 30 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Total time: 1 hour 45 mins

Serves: 18-24 doughnuts (depending on cutter size)

These donut shop style, glazed old-fashioned doughnuts made with sour cream, pumpkin puree AND spice. The perfect accompaniment to hot coffee on a chilly fall morning!

Ingredients

DOUGHNUTS:

3 cups (340 grams) cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon pumpkin spice

⅛ teaspoon nutmeg powder

½ cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons salted butter, room temperature

2 large egg yolks, room temperature

½ cup pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

½ cup sour cream

Canola oil, for frying

GLAZE:

3 ½ cups (350 grams) powdered sugar

1 ½ teaspoon corn syrup

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

⅓ cup hot water

Instructions

DOUGHNUTS:

In a bowl, sift together the cake flour, baking powder, salt, pumpkin spice, and nutmeg powder.

In the bowl of a stand mixer that’s been fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and the sugar together for a couple of minutes until it becomes sandy. Add the yolks one at a time while the mixer is on the stir setting. Add the pumpkin puree and mix until combined. Add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl in 3 additions, alternating with the sour cream (in 2 additions), starting and ending with the flour. The dough with be super sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow it to chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

On a well floured surface, dump out the dough and roll it into a ½ inch thickness. Using a [url href=”http://amzn.to/1ZXqkd4″ target=”_blank”]doughnut cutter[/url], cut out the donuts, dipping the cutter in flour as necessary to prevent dough from sticking. Depending on the size of the donut cutter you use, you will end up with 18-24 doughnuts/holes.

Heat 2 inches of canola oil in a 12 inch cast iron skillet or a dutch oven. Attach the thermometer or monitor the temperature (by increasing/decreasing the flame) so it stays at 325ºF throughout the frying process. Fry the doughnuts a few at a time, be careful not to overcrowd the skillet as this will cause temperatures to drop quickly. Fry on each side for about 1 ½ minutes, a larger cutter may require you to fry the donuts slightly longer. Do not allow the donuts to burn. Drain on a paper towel lined plate.

GLAZE:

Mix the ingredients for the glaze in a medium bowl with a form or whisk. Dunk the doughnuts one at a time into the glaze. Place on a wire rack that’s been set above a baking sheet to catch dripping glaze. Let glaze set for 20 minutes. Doughnuts will taste best when freshly made, leftovers can be store in an air tight container that’s kept at room temperature for 2-3 days.

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